susanbwrite

All my life I’ve lived in this world, some parts love, some parts dislike, some hate.  All these feelings toward me people have established from getting to know me, working, socializing, whatever else.  I, as we all would, would love to say all the hateful feelings others have  toward come from misguided misperceptions, ignorance, irrationality, there’s definitely something wrong with someone if they don’t like me…

      What if someone decided they didn’t you, just from looking at you, first glance, they see something that makes them uneasy, threatened, complete disdain? What  would you do? God forbid you might actually take something from them? Is it the way you wear your hair, your outfit, the way you walk, the color of your skin?  We have discussed and confronted these issues of what we call prejudice, what we establish as our own preconcieved notions about someone before we’ve even met, spoken to or spent some time with a person.

    I’ve grown up in enviroments  where the majority of people I lived around, went to school with  socialized   did not share my ethnic background, skin color. I came up during a time when everything from perceptions to written law when through drastic changes. A few short years before my time there were public places people like me were not able to go, much less be seen.  What would you have done? Even once laws were in place to change this, those like me were not allowed on certain school buses, to attend certain schools a few short miles from where I was educated.  There was persistence, and violence. Children were called names a child’s ear shouldnt have to hear. What was there to do.

               I am an adult now and the  Country has progressed. I came about in an area of the world and country where we are known as ‘Liberals’, we celebrate with intensity our Black President, Governor, Democratic Liberal Leftist ways. I was birthed in what is known as ‘The People’s Republic’ and always remained in the area, drive through, socialize, shop, family friends still remain, a bastion of  the open-minded,educated,  some hippes, super-Liberals and tree-huggers. Despite all this, where ever I am, on a bus and train to work, shopping at Target, crossing a street, driving my car, it’s still there. Car doors suddenly lock when I pass, I hear someone say to their (shopping) companion, ‘watch your bag’, I see a woman gesture to her elderly mother on the train to do so as I stand between them. I see stares, some glances. Sometimes I’m completely ignored by sales people when they instantly approach others. Sometimes I’m followed around.Once or twice the door was opened up on me in a dressing room, trying on clothes, by a sales person. Several times in one store visit. What would you do? Sometimes I go to places away from the City I like to go because there’s good seafood, icecream, a place to swim, a grassy hill on a beautiful Summer evening to watch the moon rise, only to hear  ‘are all the doors locked in the car? Can you go check? Watch the stuff;’.What would you have said? Trust me, I have no interest in your ‘stuff’, Im not going to jump you and  beat on you, my color won’t rub off on to you or your children. I have my own ( you should be grateful if some of my color did rub off onto you) I’m only here to be outside on a nice night, with my friends and do the same thing you’re doing. I should have said the same thing aloud to my friends, was their car locked, etc and say I was asking because I heard someone else ask and make sure that someone else heard me. I’ve dont that before, put people in their place,  in such incidences. I wonder if those folks learned anything, their lesson and stop preconceiving and misperceiving once something said to them in response to their actions. I often say to myself, come on all you super Liberals, open minds and educated,so open, yet so closed.  You voted for a Black President but yet, you think I want to steal your wallet. I’ve often thought about making a sign and pinning it to whatever shirt I wear, or my bag saying this’  I don’t want your stuff, I have my own’, in neon and flashing. I mean..what would you do?

Ever add water to your recipes to expand them?  Sometimes I do this because I run out of a certain part of a recipes, ie for a sauce and the dish is almost finished and there isn’t enough sauce b/c it’s evaporated while cooking. And I’m cheap. I often do this with canned soup as I’m usually making it for more than one and I find that many of these cans don’t allow for more than one serving. But if you add water, you must add more flavoring. There’s nothing I  hate more than flavorless soups or meals…that I’ve cooked.

    I’m always trying to avoid the sodium thing, too and many of these canned soups come with alot of sodium. I try to find the ones that are labeled with less. Hence, in making more soup to soup that’s..already there one would think to add more soup base such as bouillon, which contains a lot of salt. So, I try to find the bouillon that’s again, labeled with less, or sodium free. The problem with these solutions is, these don’t taste so great in recipes you’re trying to make taste better.

       Sometimes I’ll find seasoning packets around from other meals or take-out we’ve ordered, Thai sauces, and the like. At least then, you know there’ll be a zing to it. But  I still haven’t found the ultimate solution to stretching soup iand making it taste good with out adding something too salty.

       I’ve done just about everything under-the-sun when improvising on canned soup, added leftover meat, vegetables, then throw in some fresh, usually celery, peppers, and leafy green I have at the time, add frozen veggies of I need more, leftover rice or pasta. 

 Yet I’m often left with, in the end , that there isn’t enough taste. I’ve tried Italian seasoning mixtures, not my favorite, Herbes en Provence, pretty much the same thing but a little better, sometimes I throw in seasonings I use to flavor meat. 

     Today I’m heating up some Progresso Chicken Gumbo ( lower sodium) and have added chopped celery, frozen oriental vegetable mix and some Uncle Ben’s Whole Grain Brown rice. Hope it comes it good, as it is warm and soothing for a day like this. In the meanwhile, I keep seeking that flavor…

 I spend alot of time of Facebook. We all do, but, am I really ..doing anything, at all in there?! What am I doing, in there?  I have way  too much time on my hands ( as some of you have realized) and Im too old for this. Well, it is where I communicate with friends, how we arrange our social activities, get together, see who’s doing what. I also, no matter what Im doing check back in there to see who on, who’s chatting, who do I really want  to chat with, who will actually chat, respond to me, basically, who can I harass. Who’s saying or posting something interesting, funny  that I can comment on, laugh at, steal. Who can I make an impression on.

    Am I really making an impression..anyone, at all? Sometimes I post things, thinking I’ll get all kinds of responses, comments,  people will laugh at, things I can comment back on, start something. And no one responds. What gives, I hate that. My poor, wounded ego. Sometimes I may even post something that might even slightly offend, even though I know ahead of time it may, something that gives people the wrong impression…

                Yet what am I sharing, what do I have to share,besides show off a little, brag about somewhere I went, took some pretty pictures, hung with the coolest people, attended an event.. I dont really go anyplace spectacular, travel far and wide to magnificient and exotic places, I dont go to many events,I dont have a high-end operating camera with which to take gorgeous pictures with. I love that people share their photos and their talents, as it is stimulating to mine eye, my senses. I just use my cell phone with its  very limited in features . I also have an old HP digital camera that I only save for, you know all those special events I attend. But, I really like some of my photos, and I will post them because of this, for I am proud. For this reason I post pictures of meals Ive cooked, because if Im sitting here eating it and its damn good, I want people to know.

   I dont have the many of the talents exhibited on Facebook, if any. I  do know, however know how to run my mouth.   I dont pull up interesting or insightful articles and post them, I mostly post current and breaking news, I rarely read the News, or anything because I watch it all on tv, especially as the local news junkie I am. Sometimes Ill post meteorological events as some of them fascinate me, or astrological ones.   If its the perfect day,weatherwise in my book, Ill post about it, and ask who wants to hang out, to which no one will respond. I post pictures of  my cats and things they do because theyre so damn adorable, funny, entertaining. Well, I think so.  I post what I see and how I perceive things.   I post something Ive heard I think is funny from someone I know, or on tv., a comedien. Maybe I shouldnt post when Im angry, or annoyed but we all need to let it out, sometimes, dont we?

    So what is this what Facebook, and all such social forums are about?  Bragging and showing off? I frankly, am quite turned off by  such, I try not to do it, but I know I have. I have so much to brag about, dont I. I work, sleep, , cook, eat,watch loads of tv ( and post about that)., excercise, go to bed, get up, go to work, come home, sit on the PC, play games -(post about the drive home as driving in Massachusetts in rush hour is worth posting about), start the cycle, again.  At some point I may actually break this cycle and start going on on weeknights, again, and post about that. A little buzz from a beer, or two and I get all excited about everything. Just wait til the weather’s nicer and Im out-and-about, more. You’ll all have too much of me and you wont be able to get enough. You Susan-Facebook Junkies, you.

Ive started several blogs in the past and none have come to fruition; they werent completed b/c I had too much to write, my thoughts were ( are) very disorganized, more recently the site I was using wasnt exactly being user friendly for me and my muchly-need-to-be-user-friendly-easy-as-pie-convenience-needed brain. I have opinions, I want to write. When I hear people nearly half my age say ‘Im a writer’, I think, what the Hell have I been going ( with myself)..answer.. NOT MUCH. Time to get this  shiznit started, and done.

          So, tommorow, I start a job, first job  I’ve had in almost exactly a year. It was March 17,2010 when I was laid off. Time gets away with itself, time flies when youre having fun, well, I was for awhile considering my layoff was right at the crux of  great weather, when Susan breaks out. So, Susan took time off, took the Summer ‘off’, and decided to have some fun. Not as much as she wouldve liked having, really being able to get away, but, she did  have her fun.  As I was saying- ( change of voice, I did) Time flies, where did the time go, time has gotten away with me, and boy, does it ever.

 I could say I slept alot of the year away, sleeping well into the afternoon, most days, after staying up most of the night and morning b/c I was out socializing, or just love getting in bed and watching tv til all hours, or just plain  horrible, insettling,  dementing insomnia.  Then Id get up and try to be productive, sending endless resumes to endless places, running errands, sometimes interviewing,going for temp jobs, trying to find part-time job, dealing with family issues, financial issues.  Sometimes I even did chores..

 So, as I said, now I have this job, starting tommorow.. eaarrrllyy in the morning. When was the last time I got up at that time on a regular basis. Itll be good to get back into a schedule, even if its only for a month, or so. Yes, its temporary but its something I wanted to do in the kind of place I wanted to work. And I can drive there and hopefully avoid rush hour traffic. If I cant, hair shall be pulled out strand-by-strand.  I can happily avoid the stress and strain of riding the T, delayed buses, trains, waiting in crappy weather, dealing with rude people, filth. Quel relief. Im so spoiled in having the availability of a car, I feel like I never ever need to use the T anytime soon, anyway. Thank God for small favors. And I aint even religious.

  Im wondering how tired Ill  be after an 8 hour day, 16 hours, by Friday. Wonder if ill be able to function, go out at weeknights, at all. Wonder if Im going to have to crash as soon as I get home from work. I used to have to do that because I had such bad insomnia and was vegetable-like when I got home.  Id been so jealous of people, friends who’d been working all day and all week and had a reason to be tired. Do  I, did I have a reason to be tired; I also sat in front of the computer all day, would job search for up to 4 hours, then screw around.. with Talk Shows in the tv in the background. Yeah, thos things are  tiring to listen  to. Really bad, cheesy, so overly-exploitative. Disgusting.  White noise. 

 When this assignment ends, then what. Will I go back to that same old crap of sleeping late, feeling like Im accomplishing nothing day-after day? Will I get another assignment right away? A permanent position?  Will I feel more financially sound?  Will warm Spring-to-Summer breezes be blowing, again, coaxing me to take more time off? ( Better not)! At least Id be able to open some windows instead of sitting all day ina chill living room, bones and muscles, and brain tightening and stiffening., knowing I need to get out and do errands before rush hour, excercise or some shape and form, make, oh so important phone calls, clean something that needs to be cleaned,wash and dry laundry, thaw meat for dinner.

  Wont have to worry about shoveling out tons and miles of snow, anymore, ( well, til next year) I complained about it, but boy, was that a great workout and I beleive I even lost some weight ( but that muscle in my lower left side is store sore from that- even after all the yoga, stretching, pain killers..). My kitties will go nuts without me for 8 hours a day. Well, at least one will.  That aint even guaranteed. Nor not getting anymore snow, its still March. I want flowers, inside and outside of my house. And money. And to be content. None of its guaranteed.